update, samson & archeology: this article is of some interest. a recent dig in the holy land has discovered/uncovered an old synagogue, in which several mosaics depicting the image of samson have been found. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/archeologists-discover-ancient-synagogue-mosaic-featuring-the-biblical-figure-samson/ . this is something to keep up on. i suspect that if contemporaries of samson are mentioned in any writing or script, that they will mention the philistines rather prominently. i suspect no mention will be made of arabs, samson pre-dating david, david pre-dating jesus, and jesus pre-dating islam, and i suspect any presence by arabs in and about judea. end update, 07.05.2012.
samson agonistes, & shorter poems, john milton, harlan davidson, inc., arlington heights, illinois, 1950, edited by a.e. barker, isbn 0-882950-058-4 .
paradise lost & paradise regained, john milton, the signet classics poetry series, new york and scarborough, ontario, 1968, edited by christopher ricks, 1968, library of congress number: 68-17059.
see judges xii-xvi.
samson lies bound, imprisoned and working as slave labor in a philistine mill. he has been delivered up to the philistenes by dalila after revealing the source of his strength to her, and after she has shorne it. he remonstrates himself for having given up his strength to the wiles of a woman, and bemoans the loss of his sight, which renders him helpless.
in this pitiful state he is visited by the chorus of community values, by his father, by dalila who has betrayed him, by a giant warrior of the philistines and the father of goliath, and by an officer of the philistine court.
samson is a warrior of of the hebrews, given by god to his people in order to throw off the yoke of the philistines. he has compromised his mission by revealing the source of his prodigious strength to dalila, who is a philistine. in some respects he is piteous, as he regards his fall from grace, as he regards his apparent estrangement from god, and as he regards the imprisonment of his blindness.
his visitors in turn offer him blandishments that play on such pity.
the chorus assures him that the nazarites can secure his freedom.
his father tells him that he can bribe the philistine authorities to pardon him, and release samson to him, where he will be cared for and nursed through his blindness.
harapha of gath (father of goliath) tells sampson that he regrets not having met him on the field of battle, where most assuredly he would have defeated samson in contest.
and, dalila plies him with the strongest inducements of all, to secure his freedom and then to nurse him the remainder of his days, as her husband. she acknowledges her betrayal to sampson, but, explains it was done under the false apprehension that he would not be harmed, and that he would be given into her care where they would spend their days as husband and wife. she tells samson that the elders and priests of the philistines emphasized and argued to her that her duty lay to the community, and that community interests prevailed over her happiness and duties as wife to samson. to these blandishments, she says, she gave in, rather than for the lure of gold.
samson refuses even her touch, for fear it will cause an upwelling of passion within him, and that he will kill her. he castigates her as a lying serpant, (surely a reference to another fall from the grace of god.)
and, finally, the officer of the court tells samson he is to be spectacle at the festival held in honor of his defeat, and to display his strength for the entertainment of the philistines.
samson rejects dalila's proffers, telling her that if she were capable of betraying her when he was strong he would be absolutely helpless against her in his weakness, and subject of her indulgence and charity. he bids her to leave his presence. to his father, he requests that he not aid him, and that he prefers death to blindness. to the community chorus, his response is more subtle. he tells them of the abject helplessness of his situation, and suggests death is preferable. the chorus responds by suggesting that god has been at the very least quite fickle in his dealings with samson, as it appears that god is responsible for abandoning him at the height of his power into the most abject pits of despair. samson admits that his situation is dire, but reminds the chorus that it is as a result of his own weakness, his choice, and his foolhardy behavior. he does not impugn god for where he lies, filthy, dirty, and almost beyond recognition. he notes the part that his own arrogance has played in putting his person into slavery.
but, it is too the jibes of harapha of gath, the philistine warrior, that samson's responses are most telling. harapha take the opportunity to suggest to samson that he would have bested him in battle, and to what does god amount to after this defeat at the hands of the philistine god. samson responds by challenging the giant to a battle to the death, in which samson will fight the giant with meager weapons, and the giant may choose to use the implements and armor of combat as he chooses. samson says only that he would have the battle take place in such confined space as will negate the disadvantage of his loss of sight.
it is here that the mettle of samson emerges. it is here that samson reasserts his faith in the hebrew god, and in his faith that he is the chosen favorite of the hebrew god. samson taunts the giant by saying, in such battle, you armed to the teeth and me with minimal arms, we will find out who is the stronger god, yours, or mine, the god of the hebrews. and, it follows, who has the stronger god. samson asserts, i have faith that my god shall emerge victorious over your gods, and that i will emerge victorious from battle with you. will you accept my challenge for battle to the death, to show whose god is dominant, which god is paramount over all others.
the giant retreats from the challenge from the impertinent blind man, who lies helpless on the ground before him.
piteous as he is, and as tempting as it is to fob off onto god the blame for his pitiable state, samson reasserts his faith in god, and reasserts his duty to fulfill god's mission.
there is much fight left in samson, as we shall see.
the officer of the philistines reappears, to reassert his command that samson attend the festival being held by the philistines, and to display himself before his conquerors, and those who have blinded him. samson accepts, and disappears from the stage of the poem, leaving the community chorus and his father to discuss this turn of events.
soon is heard great hue and cry, as people scream and cry out in agony and death throe. as this continues, a stranger appears and relates what has happened. samson has performed before the crowd, and then asks for respite. he is led to two great columns upholding the stage. it is here that he meets his doom, and metes out death and doom to the philistines, as he grasps the great columns and rips them done, crushing the multitudes beneath the collapsing building. when the screams of agony die, the chorus and samson's father determine that they shall attend to the recovery and cleansing of samson's body, and the celebration of his heroic death.
though tempted multiple times to give up his battle as god's instrument for the benefit of the hebrews, he does not give into the blandishments of ease & comfort & rest, and a life free of pain. he reasserts his role as warrior, as the instrument of god's will, and the servant of his people.
it is a noble and heroic end for samson, and it is the proper end of his agony, and, of his struggle, as god's instrument.
his father, his friends and his betrayer wife offer him comfort and repose in his blindness, tempt him with a life of ease as opposed to the warrior's death he seeks. his refusal of these temptations is evocative of the temptations offered christ before his death, and the suffering he endures accepting it as the consequence of his own action is of the stature of job's refusal to deny god's justice.
for this, samson is hero.
john jay @ 06.25.2012
p.s. the foreword to both works is worth the read.
i find the foreword to samson agonistes, in particular, most illuminating. at page viii of the introduction, a.e. barker writes:
"between the early poems and [the drama of samson agonistes] lay milton's experience of a revolution animated by moral idealism and ending in shameful anarchy and defeat. the quality of this experience --of public infamy and anger, of thwarted political and religious hopes, of personal suffering in blindness and loneliness sustained with fortitude and some measure of urbanity-- is indicated by the sonnets, each tensely-wrought unit expressing a facet of milton's personality. samson agonistes is sometimes read as an account of his experience, for the blind and aging samson, isolated in misery, sensible at once of weakness and failure and of the divine sanction of his apparently defeated cause, strikingly resembles milton after the restoration. but the drama is far more than autobiographical. in milton intense personal emotion revitalizes and reshapes traditional symbols, poetic forms, and readings of experience, to issue in universally significant works of coherent art. whatever is personal to him in the drama is merged into its presentation of the agony or struggle through which samson, already in christian tradition a type of christ and so of every christian in a hostile world, achieves self-mastery in temptation and triumph in defeat."
indeed, samson is a direct and perfect model of him who will fight the perfect fight to its conclusion, and who will sacrifice his own life in the name of a path chosen by god. samson's power is the power of faith, as much sourced in his human intellect and will as sourced in the divine direction of god.
prior to his fall he is the vessel of god's will and direction. after his fall, after the endurance of his suffering, after his humiliation and apparent estrangement by god, his true stature emerges, and that is as a warrior for truth and divine mission, born of his will and decision.
this is samson's stature, that of a warrior for truth and divine mission. in this, samson elevates the role of man in the path toward divinity, and man emerges the larger.